Eh, this would have been an alright set at a price point between $170-180. At $200 it's a bit pricey. At $150 it'd actually be a great set. It captures the look of Minecraft well and provides a large environment, so I do expect a lot of kids to beg their parents for it, even if many parents won't shell out that much for it.

As you say Huw, there are a lot of other better sets to buy than this. thanks for the review

it's okay. too expensive. it would have been nice to get another simpsons set, like moe's, instead of this

On a side note, why don't they make a set like this for Friends? That'd certainly be popular.

Must-buy for me, so cool!

Minecraft has a huge appeal to teens and 20 something year olds too. I'm quite sure this set will sell well enough to younger AFOLs to make money.

Bring on Big Ben and the Beetle !

This is fairly disappointing at first glance... :-(

Why only 2 villagers and no chickens?

Why another Iron Golem, why another creeper, why an enderman, why 2 more pigs, why an Alex AND a Steve??!!

On a more positive note, I like the buildings and other elements and I do like the 2 villagers that are provided. It'll certainly be a good addition to a Minecraft setup, but I won't be purchasing this at full price. It'll be a double VIP, or similar offer, purchase as more than 10p/piece for Minecraft is over the top and especially for a set of this size.

It looks pretty neat, and appears quite large in size. I do however think that the appeal for LEGO Minecraft is starting to wane now, so a US$200 or more scarily AU$299 is going to be a bit of a tough sell.

^ Exactly. While I never see a Lego set I wouldn't like to own, including this one, some of the recent D2C sets, including this one, definitely fall into the "don't want enough to buy" category.

If Lego didn't have 2? Star Wars UCS sets, Big Ben, the Beetle, and 4 huge Technic sets still coming this year I would buy this, the Batcave, and Hoth. In light of the sets still coming, I have to pass on this set.

As a big Minecraft fan I will get this some time this year. Price is really high for me, but I might be able to afford it in December or something. The only thing I'm disappointed about is that we didn't get a skelly and more villagers.

So this is what we get this year, rather than another Simpsons set? How disappointing.

It's nothing more than a glorified parts bucket - an incredibly expensive one at that. I genuinely don't understand what the intended market is for this set at all...

I'm not a Minecraft fan, but this looks quite nice! A decent figure selection and lots of great details inside and out. With a recommended age range of 8+ it's definitely aimed younger than any other exclusive sets of its size, and sadly the price doesn't seem fair for its piece count any way you slice it. :( If it weren't for that high price per piece it could be a great parts pack even for AFOLs who don't care for Minecraft. It seems like some of the commenters above who know more about Minecraft than I do also have some issues with the figure selection. But in the very least, the designers seem to have done their part to make the set as great and well-rounded as they could.

With that new torso, how long will it be before we get a 'straitjacket' CMF? ;)

Despite the comment in the description about being "designed for young fans", I think this set has a much more polished finish than the typical minecraft set. The addition of smooth or center stud tiles for the roofs of most buildings and along the tops of walls is something missing from all the other sets that is clearly an attempt to "upgrade"the set and I think it works really well. Also, compare this to most other minecraft sets where $40-$50 gets you one building (without the same level of detail as these and also usually smaller than some of these) and some surrounding terrain. Here you are getting two large buildings, two medium sized buildings and two small structures. Comparatively I think its quite nice for design, finish, size and value. But I do agree at least one more villager would be nice.

Is the white villager Dr Trayaurus?

This set is worth $150 at most in my eyes, and even then I wouldn't get it unless it was around $120 or less. Too bad, my girlfriend is fond of Minecraft, and the set looks rather nice overall...but we agree that this set's just too expensive and has too few minifigs for that price. That greed is a darn shame, Lego. Darn shame.

As a Minecraft fan, I say this is exactly the direction I wanted these sets to go. This is the perfect representation of the average village. I would have liked to see more villagers but the set isn't supposed to be about one specific scene. Minecraft's strength is that a single setting becomes a different scenario every time. I've found villages with one house and two villagers, and I've found massive villages ... er ... cities. I've built villages that are virtually zombie proof, and I've had villages where I had to go out and kill all the zombies at the gates. All in all, I think this set well represents nearly every Minecraft village scenario. Thus why the selection of minifigs, buildings, mobs, etc. is very well balanced.

Simpsons is done for and the Minifigures D2C in September probably isn't Simpsons related.

$200 for a 1600 piece set that is mainly going to be standard pieces? This is coming across as far too overpriced.

Wow! I've normally mocked the sets for their blocky simple look. But this, looks dead on! Despite being a fan of the game I've avoided all the previous sets, but this might make me break open my wallet.

My 9yr old son is a big Minecraft fan and has quite a few of the sets, so I can see him saving his money and ask for this set when the time comes. But he has recently started asking about the Bat-cave too, so he'll have to decide which one he wants.

Half a mortgage payment for 2Xn bricks and some block head minifigs... hard pass on this!

As an avid Minecraft player who has come across many a village, I can say that the construction is fairly accurate. I think trying to cram in various biomes is a bit ham fisted. When you find a village in the game its usually in a grasslands or a desert with no other Biomes intersecting. That was a weird design choice.

The construction of the structures is wonderful there. They totally nailed the look and feel of the actual buildings. The inclusion of the fields is accurate to. There's always crops on the outlying areas and center sections of a village. They're often times the only way you can find crops for your personal needs to.

The major downside of this set IMO is the figure selection. Another Iron Golem makes sense, but only two villagers and then an assortment of other random MOBs that are dime a dozen in the other sets was a mistake in my view. They could have ommited the Enderman and creeper for a "horde" of zombies which is something that does happen in the game, and they really should have included more villagers. I suspect they omitted additional villagers for future sets. "Why buy the X set for the priest villager when he already came in the village?" They're probably trying to avoid this later on.

It looks like there's a lot of baseplates here and it all feels very cohesive which is a complaint I saw with the hoth Set and that article about baseplates. So this should win over some of the people complaining about lack of baseplates.

Why is there a pig up a lampost?

Seems way to expensive for what you actually get. When a set contains mostly 2x2 generic pieces I don't see how it can cost that much. This set looks more like $160 USD set. The only thing I can think that would bump the price up is all the plates that are in this set.

If it was £120 it is just about worth it.
£160! No way TLG!

@ROTJ, I highly doubt LEGO would produce a set centered on a building whose focus is the consumption of alcohol. There's definitely some rule against that within the company :P

I have so many thoughts about this set so I made it into a video format so it is much easier to hear them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYT_IeB0tBA

The Minecraft theme has come a long way, hasn't it? I remember when the theme was first starting out the theme got a lot of the same criticism I've seen Angry Birds get—the game was old news, physical toys wouldn't appeal to the kinds of players who enjoyed it, and the theme was one or two years too late to be successful. Cut to now when Minecraft is one of Lego's most successful themes. And as to the game's lasting appeal, I just read a story about it that includes statistics such as the fact that the game sells 10,000 copies PER DAY (which seems astronomical to me) and the average age of players is 28-29 years old (which helps me better understand what kind of audience a massive set like this might be aimed at).

I have to admit that as a non-fan, there's not much that appeals to me in this set outside of parts. But it certainly is a substantial set, with a fair amount of variety in its builds and figures.

Is there 2016 dtc release schedule that is known about?

If it's made mostly of basic pieces, I don't get why the price is so high...wouldn't be bad for $150-$175, and for a Minecraft set it looks actually pretty good.

As a fan of Minecraft, I really like the look of this set! It's a very accurate depiction of the average Minecraft village. Having said that, it's definitely too expensive. I think $150 USD would be a much better price.

Knowing how my dad has recently become obsessed with Minecraft and taking care of his little village, he'll probably make me buy this the moment he sees it. :P

At least now I don't need to buy the Iron Golem set, since this essentially comes with everything that set contains.

I agree with those that say this is a pass just like bat cave and hoth.

Very disappointing LEGO year this year so far. It started off great with the Bank and HQ but it looks we will have to wait till the summer before anything comes out worthy of my money. And I have plenty to spend but not on this.

I guess the Minecraft fans must be happy though. And I personally have high hopes for the special Technic sets this year...

I would expect this to be cheaper. Ya, there's a lot of 2x bricks that, being bigger, cost more and have a higher chance of failure given their larger volume, but I just can't purchase a minecraft set for $200. It looks really nice, Might have been better as 7 smaller sets (as one of the pictures shows) but as others have said, I think $150 would have been a MUCH stronger selling point. But, if no one buys them, they'll go on sale. That's how I bought the ender dragon sete for $35 USD!

I think you meant 19119 [DesignID] instead of 6097232 [ElementID for 19119 in Green]. It also looks dark orange, not Reddish brown to me, as it doesn't match the other reddish brown parts, which is even better!

Where pricing strategy has become with the D2C products happens when product management of different lines operate as non-integrated profit centers. But given the smaller distributions it's understandable they may see it as a manageable risk to their reputation and brand to squeeze some extra margin from the AFOLs.

This looks fantastic! I've really do like the extra detail they added by smoothing the roofs over with tiles, making the setup modular, and CAKE!

I think the price seems on this seems fair enough, especially considering that this is a licensed set.

The minifigure selection is a little odd since both an Iron Golem and a baby pig are both included in this set. That makes buying the 21123 Iron Golem set useless unless of course you want multiples.

Bit of a slap in the face to anyone who's already bought the Iron Golem set--or is that not available yet? Since I'm not a Minecraft fan I must admit I'm not aware of when those sets are being released, and I'm not going to be buying this either, but it does look like a set that the target audience will get lots of pleasure out of. (Definitely not an equivalent to Disappointment at Hoth!)

Thank goodness there are finally a couple of themes I can happily leave out of my collection, but can see other people enjoying!

Why does it always say "after the break"?

This is what Lego Minecraft SHOULD always look like - blocky but detailed buildings with nice nougat bricks, nice little areas of crops and some interesting character minifigures. I don't know why the other Minecraft sets weren't up to this standard before! I'd almost consider buying it if it was £100 or under.

@Droidslayer: In web design, a "break" is a term for the thing you put in the middle of an article so that the article on the main page only shows the first part and you have to click "Continue Reading" or something like that to read the rest. So anything past the "continue reading" on the front page would be considered "after the break".

Sigh... another bad D2C. I mean, it's certainly a nice collection of parts, and it's big and contains all the Minecraft characters. But it's also kind of messy-looking, at least $40 more than it should be, needs more villagers, and doesn't feel special. Say what you will about the Batcave, that had a lot of thought put into it to be an adult-oriented, awesome, detailed model. Did it work? Sort of. But this... feels just like another overly large playset, like Assault on Hoth.

Oh, and having the Iron Golem in there is a great idea... that goes AGAINST LEGO's philosophy of "buy all the sets to have a complete-r model." All of that set is basically in here.

This set would be fantastic if it were a little cheaper and was more populated...2 villagers? C'mon TLG. My son has all the other Minecraft sets so he'll most probably end up with this too.

The amount of parents and not even that, uncles and aunts, that buy children these outrageously expensive sets sickens me.

I could buy two Minecraft sets with beat up boxes right now on Amazon for $60 and get 845 pieces. But at least this set looks more complete than the Batcave.

$200 USD/$250 CDN for 1600 mostly mediocre pieces? This has to be one of the worst D2C sets I have ever seen.

£129.99 would have been a better price point. Or a lot more minifigs. I don't understand the hate for this set though. It's minecraft. This is what minecraft looks like.

The set looks great, but I agree that figs-choices are horrible. we get pig and iron Golem in small set already, the cow/baby cow would be better addition. I do like how they made a Zombie vilager though!
As it probably will never be available in Poland... I don't care.

^ How do you mean, not available in Poland? It's D2C, you go to LEGO.com (which is even available in Polish now) and you order. Am I missing anything?

The Euro equivalent of 225 US-$ for 1600 mostly standard bricks? What is TLG thinking?

Ok, I have to admit, I don't care for minecraft to begin with, and I don't like the look of those sets in general. But apart from that, even though it may be a licenced set, it is just hideously overpriced.

And such a thing as a D2C set?
After all the other disappointments this year (Hoth, Batcave, Friends "rollercoaster", ...)
Hell, after seeing the Jangbricks review of the GB Firehouse I have decided to not even get that one. Too many faults for a pricepoint of 350 Euros.
Something is very wrong at TLG at the moment imho.
Let's hope the second half of the year offers some better sets. At least it looks as if this could be the case (Big Ben, UCS DS, large Technic sets).

^Friends rollercoaster isn't a D2C set. But yes, most of the non-Brick Bank and GB Firehouse D2C sets this year leave a lot to be desired.

This is starting to get a bit boring... another month, another D2C reveal everyone complains about.

After looking over the set and reading the comments I agree with just about everyone.
1) It's a very nice design and does look like an actual Minecraft village.
2) It's overpriced for the style of pieces you receive. I completely agree. $250 CDN is too high. $200 CDN (say $160 US) and that's a fair price.
3) Lack of unique figures. How hard would it have been to include more villagers.

I have two boys who love Lego and the oldest loves Minecraft (we have each Minecraft Lego set). I really hope the oldest guy does not want this set for Christmas as it seems like a waste of money. I could just buy a bunch of crafting boxes and complete most of it myself. Compared to the D2C Ninjago Temple that came out last year that had 12 minifigures including 6 unique to the set and a beautiful design. This one pales in comparison. I'm most likely going to buy the Ninjago set this summer for both them and myself.

Personally I think they could have done a modular Minecraft line selling each set individually and connecting them altogether to make one complete town. (ala 1980s Castle Wall sets). With the option to buy the whole thing D2C.

this is a set i may consider buying

I know it is expensive, I know the minifig list might not be to everyones taste but I like it. My kids like playing with Minecraft lego even without actually having played the game so I think these Minecraft sets have a lot of play options.

This set is €260 in the Swedish Lego store, what parent will pay that for a Minecraft set?

If ever there was a Minecraft set that didn't need Steve or Alex, this is it. Seriously, I've got Steves out the wazoo, and I don't even have all the sets I want. (Which, to be honest, is all of them.) Frankly, if someone's willing to drop 200 bucks on this, they probably already have a few Steves and at least one Alex. Those two really should have been replaced with another couple of villagers.

I am starting to think maybe this set isn't so bad. If Hoth and Batcave weren't so awful perhaps this set would have been welcomed more open-mindedly.

I dont't have any Mindcraft sets yet but like to have at least one set per theme in my collection.

Anyone have any thoughts whether this would be a good set to have as their one-and-only mindcraft set?

Pretty pricy it should be $150ish but it look's cool :)

A bit pricy but a good looking set. I don't think I'll get it; I'm saving for Rogue One.

$350 pp here in Australia has a large majority of AFOL's saying too expensive at nearly 20c per piece. Not liking the rising price of the price per brick, hope it is just for these licenced themes, but its beginning to set a precedent.

Looks cool.